A Fake (Hawaiian) License Plate

Joke Poo: A Fake (Amazon) Review

Back in 2023, just prior to leaving my toxic job at Amazon, I decided some “corporate payback” was due to my immediate manager.

I used Photoshop (poorly) to create some fake Amazon product reviews and flood his favorite product’s page.

I received a message from a former colleague, that 2 days after my resignation, Amazon’s AI flagged his account for suspicious activity and banned him from leaving reviews.

Furious that he was, he couldn’t prove it was me.

The reviews all complained: “THIS PRODUCT IS SO OVERHYPED.”

Okay, let’s dissect this slice of ’90s prank history and then see if we can squeeze some more humor out of it.

Joke Dissection:

• Premise: A soldier stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii pranks his Platoon Sergeant with fake license plates just before leaving the island.
• Setup: Involves creating the plates with Harvard Graphics (a key ’90s detail!), applying them, and the prankster’s departure to create plausible deniability.
• Punchline: The Platoon Sergeant gets pulled over by the Hawaiian police for the offensive fake plate: “MSTRB8.” The prankster gets away with it.
• Humor Source:
  • Schadenfreude: The satisfaction of seeing someone in authority get into a bit of trouble.
  • Cleverness: The subtly offensive word play of the license plate.
  • Technology Nostalgia: The reference to Harvard Graphics grounds the joke in a very specific (and somewhat clunky) era of computing.
  • Plausible Deniability: The prankster planned it perfectly so he could not be held responsible.

Key Elements:

1. Harvard Graphics: The archaic presentation software.
2. Schofield Barracks: A military base in Hawaii (Oahu, specifically).
3. “MSTRB8”: The offensively suggestive license plate.
4. Hawaiian Police: Law enforcement in Hawaii, specifically pulling someone over for the plates.
5. Plausible Deniability: The ability to commit the prank without being caught.

Humor Enrichment/New Jokes:

Based on these elements, here are a few ideas:

1. Witty Observation:

“It’s amazing how far presentation software has come. Back in ’92, Harvard Graphics was used to prank Platoon Sergeants with suggestive license plates. Now, PowerPoint is used to present quarterly earnings reports… which, arguably, are just as offensive.”

2. “Did You Know?” Style Fun Fact:

“Did you know that in Hawaii, personalized license plates are subject to review to prevent offensive or misleading combinations? Plates deemed ‘likely to cause confusion,’ ‘offensive to good taste,’ or ‘misleading to the public’ will be rejected. Clearly, either the application process was less stringent in 1992, or some Platoon Sergeant had VERY bad luck (thanks to Harvard Graphics and a clever private).”

3. Playing with Expectations: A New Joke Scenario:

A young, digitally-savvy private pulls the exact same prank on his platoon sergeant in 2024, using AI-generated license plates created on Dall-E. The sergeant immediately knows it’s him, because the AI, trying to be too clever, also included a QR code that led to a PowerPoint presentation detailing the entire prank. When asked by the Sergeant why the QR code was there the Private responded: “It was the only way I knew how to export it to a PNG file.”

4. A Pun Based on Hawaii:

“Why did the Platoon Sergeant get pulled over for the ‘MSTRB8’ license plate? Because the Hawaiian police lei down the law against such plate-ntly offensive displays!”

5. Bringing it to the Modern Military:

Instead of Harvard Graphics, the modern soldier uses Canva to design the plate and uploads it to a 3D printer. He gets caught because the PLA, the People’s Liberation Army, hacks the 3D printer and reports the soldier to his Platoon Sergeant for his inappropriate misuse of military assets.

The key is to lean into the specific details that made the original funny – the ’90s tech, the military setting, the double entendre – and find new ways to highlight them or add a contemporary twist.